Bloodbath and beyond

2 Day Skorne

2011-11-21T22:23:00.001-08:00

All of these were painted over 2 days.. I base colored them, dipped them, sealed them, then did a few additional highlights. Quick and easy! I wanted to try out the technique again.. I used it a few years ago, but never really gave it a solid chance.

I'll definitely be adding to this.

Gator'dun!

2011-11-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

35 points worth of blind water all done up and pretty.. Better pics thanks to the new light box.

More pink Legion!

2011-11-13T13:26:00.000-08:00

So here are some crappy pics of the legion.. But it's the best I can do for now.

Legion

2011-10-06T10:07:00.001-07:00

Yeah, my own shit is hot pink. So what?

Trollbloods

2011-10-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Romeo from battlefoam owns these.. There are some more that I didn't get pictures of, but thems the breaks. Very fun to paint, but I got pretty burned out twords the end. Maybe I can sweet talk him into sending me better pictures of everything one of these days.

Note: I had way too much fun painting the pig this guy is carrying.

Seaforge

2011-10-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

I did all of these for Charlie.. The painting went pretty quick and for the most part was fun to do. Combination of airbrush and paint brush.. Used mainly Vallejo model color with some p3 paints.

Malifaux

2011-10-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

Romeo commissioned me to do all of these about a year ago.. There was a bunch more, but I didn't have time to get pictures of everything. Pic quality sucks, but ah well whatev's. This commission was a bear, it was a very quick deadline.. And I hated most of the models. Since most are pretty individual, I couldn't get into any sort of assembly line style painting. I had to do most of them 1 by 1. I believe they were for display at gencon.

Random Painting

2011-10-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Random Stryker I did for a local:

P. Butcher for Josh

Venom test scheme, done using p3 paints and a airbrush/paint brush.

Elves o' plenty

2010-09-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

Sold off these elves.. They were fun to paint though.

one thing of note, I used an airbrush to highlight the jacks.. It doesn't show up too well in the pics however.

I also used an airbrush for the basecolor and first highlight on the Invictors.. I then blended in white as a final highlight by hand.

Thats it for now.. Enjoy!

As usual, if there are any questions.. Let 'em rip

Retribution

2010-06-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

So, I used to dabble in warmachine.. I painted up a Khador army a few years ago and I really enjoyed working on it. I lost iterest and sold off the army.

To this day I still enjoy painting Warmachine/Hordes stuff on commission for people. Recently, I did a dwarf mercenary army for my pal Charlie. Between this commission and my burn-out on local 40k tournaments, as well as the MKII rules, it was enough to spark my interest again.

So I decided to go with the new Retribution of Scyrah. Mainly because its completely new to me, I really like most of the models, and its a good excuse to paint some white. As Charlie described it: "That forest stormtrooper look".

When I built my Khador, I dove in feet first by trading and buying anything that half way interested me.. This time around I hit the books first, did some research and settled on an army I think would be fun to use before purchasing anything. The new tiered lists appealed to me, so I opted to go with one of those.

This is what I came up with for 35pts:
Adeptis Rahn
x2 Phoenix Heavy warjacks 14pts
x1 Arcanist (free)
x3 Units of Battle Mages 15pts
x3 Magisters 6pts

This list hit tier 3, so I got the Arcanist for free and th Mages/Magisters can move before the game starts if I want them to.

The army has the ability to move the other guys stuff around, which is good in just about any table top game you play. Pushing away models here, pulling them closer there, its always infuriating to be on the recieving end of that. While the list is basically just spamming a few units, it should be pretty versatile on the table. Either allowing me to go for a caster kill, or shove models around in a scenario. We'll see how it works out.

Last weekend at Empire games, I took first in their 40k tournament with my Blood Angels. With the credit won, I picked up a box of houseguard rifles and a soulless blister. The last purchases I want to make for the Rahn list is a unit of Houseguard Halberdiers with their unit attachment, another unit of Battle mages and a Chimera light jack. At that point, I will be able to run 50pts at tier4 with just about any variation I'd like. I'm not sure I'll collect much more than this, but a shooty army based around mage hunters does have some appeal as well.

Also, I'm casting my gaze twords Flames of War once again. I have a large British paratrooper army as well as a nearly complete Commando army. Perhaps I'll get into that again as well.

My only beef with these two games is competitive play doesn't happen nearly as often as 40k.. On one hand that makes tournaments exciting and special and I'm less likely to burn out, on the other hand it is hard to keep interested in between events since I generally dislike pickup games and leagues.

Burn out

2010-05-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

I can feel a burn out settling in. It's happened a few times in the past, and eventually passes. I'll still paint. I'm unsure if I wanted to attend any local tournaments for a while.

I'm tired of the dick waving and shit talking. I don't care when its friendly, but lately it is just been silly.

On one hand, I like that local tournaments have mostly done away with soft scores. I feel it turns tournaments into hobby events, and less about who stomps the most ass.. On the other, soft scores keep jackasses in line and scare off the worst ones. Comp can always die in fire though. I'm talking more about sportsmanship and painting.

I think painting should be required to participate, but there shouldn't be a score for it in a tournament. Sportsmanship is a whole other can of worms. It regulates some people, which is a plus. On the other, people will tank a sports score out of spite just because they took a kicking. Without a sports score at all, people eventually turn into assholes. It's a real lose-lose thing.

Perhaps I should just skip the locals all together. More and more its not worth attending, I feel more like a baby sitter some days than a tournament participant. Sadly, I'm talking about grown men. The prizes are questionable, lousy scenarios and I have to put up with asshole after asshole in some never ending dick measuring contest. Instead of attending the locals, I could just save and hit whatever indy gt's I can afford to get to.

Its like, if you lose or make a mistake.. You instantly suck or something. And if you win, you have to sit there and validate your win. What happened to showing up, playing and win or lose that was that? Do I need to be playing a different game or something?

Anyway, back to painting. The local assholes can go back to beating up on children. I just don't have any desire to educate them further at this time.

Space Wolves mkII

2010-04-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this army off and on since october.. Some of it still needs misc details, but I feel they're good enough for general/tournament play at this point. The thunderwolves are still wip, and I have a few bits of metal/bases/badges left to do. I haven't touched my Runepriests yet, and Njall is about half done but needs all his details still.

Enjoy!

Edit: I just noticed some harsh glare right after I posted.. Thats a bummer. I still suckass completely at taking pics haha

Undead Robots?!

2010-04-14T17:57:00.001-07:00

Here is an ooooold army I did. I built and painted this right when the book came out, many years ago. Photographing these guys is a pain. Ah well

Necron Lord

The 10 Immortals

The 10 Flayed ones

3 Wraiths

5 Destroyers

3 Heavy Destroyers

8 Scarab Swarms

A smattering of warriors. I have 50 painted, but I figured this many gives the basic idea.

The Monolith

Say it aint slow.

2010-01-14T02:29:00.000-08:00

One topic I've been meaning to write about is playing slow.

Do you only ever get 3 or 4 turns in at a tournament before time is called? Do you look at other tables and see people playing while you are still pulling your army out of it's case? Are you frustrated because your swarm takes longer to play than smaller armies of the same point value?

I often finish my tournament games well ahead of time, and find myself sitting around bored for an hour or so. There are advantages and disadvantages to playing your games quickly.. And I'll discuss a few things you can do to speed your game up.

First off, some advantages:

1. You will find your opponent will often try to match your pace. They don't do it on purpose, but if you are playing quickly often times they will speed up too. An obvious advantage here is that if they aren't used to playing at a hurried pace, they are more prone to make mistakes. Sometimes this doesn't work, and you end up standing around bored while your opponent takes his sweet ass time. I played a guy recently who had about 15 minute turns on average. 15x7=105. In a 2 and a half hour tournament round, he used up the vast majority of the time. Slow playing intentionally? Possibly. It just meant I had to play even faster, which if I wasn't used to doing may have cost me the game.

2. Faster play will enable you to use a larger army. Typically a large army takes a while to move, shoot and assault. Take a look around at a tournament, those guys with the "huge" armies are usually the last ones to finish their games or they run out of time.

3. Playing quickly also means your games will usually go the full duration. Losing a game on turn 3 just because you ran out of time is frustrating. Especially when you are handing the other guy his ass.

4. I used to not call people on questionable rules just for the sake of time.. Now I do. I find since I'm playing faster, there is more time to discuss a rule interpretation.

Disadvantages:

1. You will sometimes make mistakes. If you aren't comfortable with your army or aren't familiar with what you are fighting against, the odds of this go up. These mistakes can make your game difficult or even cost you a win.

2. If you move too quickly from phase to phase, you may forget units. I'm guilty of sometimes forgetting to shoot a unit before I launch assaults, by then its too late.

3. Going fast pisses some people off, they feel hurried or pressured (which isn't the case since there isn't a player time limit like in chess). This could result in your sportsmanship score suffering a bit.

So, playing quickly will often put your opponent on his back-foot. Slow players give the impression of being unsure of what to do, or not confident in their abilities.. Moving fast will send the message that you know what you are doing, and there isn't shit the other guy can do about it. It may cause him to second guess himself every turn, which can bog the game down.. But from what I've seen, its more likely they will just try to match your pace and end up making mistakes.

So, how can you speed yourself up?

1. Use a display board/movement tray. Set your army up on this by unit in between rounds. When it comes time for deployment, you don't have to dig around in your case for every unit.

2. Practice deploying your army at home. Set up a table if you have one, or proxy one if you dont.. And time yourself setting up your army. While your opponents deployment my dictacte yours a bit, it will allow you to get a feel for what to put where and how quickly to do so.

3. Have lots of dice, with 2 or more sets if possible. The less groups of dice you have to roll, the better. During my opponents turn, I often lump my dice into groups of 10 so that on my turn I don't have to waste as much time counting them. While he's making armor saves or pulling models, I'm seperating my dice back into their groups. The different sets allow you to roll different colored ones for speed rolling.

4. Don't worry about organizing your casualties. Do this in between rounds, not during your game.

5. Scatter dice. Try to roll this as close as you can to where you are shooting. The results of this stupid die are one of the most debated things in most games. Rolling next to your target eliminates this debate.

6. Coherency. While it may seem wise to always be spread out the maximum of 2" to avoid blasts spreading out every unit not only makes it so you have less room to deploy, but it also takes a lot of time to measure everything.. Try to eye-ball your coherency when possible, and only spread out the maximum if you have to. Is it worth spreading out 150 ork boys from one side of the table to the other just to avoid a few blasts? No, its not. It probably hurts your deployment, takes a lot of time and makes your army spread thin. Just eat a couple blasts on the chin and speed your game up.

7. Measuring sticks. Make 2 of them at 6" and 2 more at 12". One set is for you, and the other is for your opponent if they would like to use them. It allows you to measure movement quickly and fumble with a tape-measure less. You only need a tape measure if you are doing anything longer than 12", which surprisingly isn't a whole lot outside of shooting heavy weapons.

8. Practice some more. You've been practicing deployment with your fancy army tray/display board? Good.. Now practice movement phases. Learn how to quickly move your army. This is important for swarm style lists.

9. Know thy enemy. Do your homework, read the other codexes even if you don't own the army. Get a feel for what they can do and their rules. This is very important to tournament play in addition to playing quickly. It allows you to have a good idea of what the other guy is capable of. Playing fast will do nothing for you if you are going to let the other guy plant his foot in your ass just because you didn't know any better.

So, if you can speed your game up you will get in full games, leave your opponent second guessing the whole time or put him on his back foot and get to realize the full potential of your army.

If you are new to the game, don't worry about playing quickly. Get comfortable with the rules and your list before jumping feet first into "speed play".

Hope this helps!

Thunder Wolf WIP

2009-10-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a work in progress shot of my thunderwolf sculpt..

This is the first mini I've sculpted completely from scratch. I intend to cast them once I'm done.

I want mine to have more armor and less bionics, hence the big "boxing glove" over the foot. It will have blades attached to it in a similar style to claws.

Still to do:
Finish the head.
Finish the saddle
Put fur to the tail.
Add straps all over.
Big mane of fur on his back, I was waiting untill the saddle and head was finished for this.

Sorry for the crappy pics, they were taken with my cell phone.

Oh yeah, and hes a biggun.. About as tall as a blood crusher, but wider.

Wild west shoot out

2009-10-19T06:03:00.000-07:00

That was a long weekend.. I didn't take pictures for battle reports, and didn't think to write down anyones name/army lists for a write up. But I'll do a brief re-cap.

I ended up using the new Space Wolf codex, and didn't finalize my list untill the night before. I should have gone with my original instinct on the list, but ended up switching it at the last minute (something I do often, and this time it somewhat screwed me).

My list was:
Logan Grimnar

x4 Wolf Guard terminators
wolf claws
drop pod

x4 wolf guard terminators
power fists, assault cannon
drop pod
x1 wolf guard
power fist (attaches to the "fighty" grey hunter pack)

x9 Grey hunters
melta gun, mark of the wolfen, power weapon, wolf standard
drop pod

x10 Grey Hunters
x2 melta guns
drop pod

x10 grey hunters
x2 melta guns
drop pod

Lone wolf
terminator armor, thunder hammer, storm shield

x6 long fangs
5 missile launchers

x6 long fangs
5 missile launchers

GAME ONE:
I went against a guy named Zack (Zach?) from california. He had a Chaos nurgle army he made the week before for the event. 2 Princes, but no lash which was a nice change. The mission was kill points, where everything was worth 2 but dedicated transports were worth one.

My initial drops went well, I screwed up deployment of my long fangs and wasn't able to see much after I blew up his rhinos. The first few turns saw me crippling his mobility and getting punched in the face. I whittle most of his squads down and target anything thats an "easy kill". Logan arrives turn 5 and mops up reduced sized units.

Victory to me. I believe it was 16kp to 10.

GAME TWO:

Crashed piolet. A central objective you had to carry off the board.

My opponent was playing space wolves as well. Name was Charlie I think? He was a nice guy, but probably one of the slowest players I've encountered in a tournament. He had to proxy several things (which I can understand since the codex recently changed). Often forgetting to do little things, I would allow him to do so anyway..

I manage to chop his army in half with drop pods and use of a large building in the middle of the table, I opt to deploy my terminators in order to carry the objective and have my grey hunters drop. Back and forth killing for the first 3 or 4 turns, as I near the table edge he throws everything he can into stopping me or slowing me down. Noteworthy charge of 25 blood claws against logan's squads, I use his howl and have preferred enemy. I lose logan to the blood claws, but my wolf guard wipe out the smaller squad and make the larger one break, nearly walking them off the table.

This scenario was difficult to pull a win from, nearly everyone at the tournament tied this round. All my opponent had left on the table was a heavily damaged crusader.
I tied however. But wracked up a ton of victory points.

So now I'm one win, one tie.

GAME THREE:
The scenario was old school, table quarters worth victory points and night fight for 3 turns.

Went against nid-zilla. In all honesty, he was a nice guy.. I was a bit impatient after my shitty game the previous round, so the bad is on me for that one. After being slow played and the guy doing nothing more than trying to get a draw in game two, I was irritated and acted like a bit of a prick. I was also very tired by this point in my defence.. Anyway

nid-zilla with a more balanced twist than usual. Only one tyrant and 3 carnifex, but he did have a broodlord and a good amount of genestealers.

I dropped defensive with the terminators and fighty grey hunter pack. I begin grinding through his line for the first few turns, but miss a key charge with logan due to the horror and 3 bugs with psychic scream. Had I known about it, I'd have made logan fearless to auto-pass the leadership check in order to charge. This cost me nearly two squads over the next two turns.

a close, close game. I had a hand-full of models left by the end, and he had one stealer squad that just finished putting the boots to my long fangs in my own table quarter. I win, but barely.

2 wins, 1 tie. and with that, we break for the night to return for the "secret scenario".

GAME FOUR:
Shoot out. Now, I know sometimes its cute to throw out a weird scenario as a tournament organizer to hear people groan.. But this one was a bit much, I feel had it not been "secret" people would have raised hell over it. Personally, when I first saw it I was kind of pissed and felt a bit cheated that I paid $80 to come play a scenario like this. The scenario was victory points, 16" deployment zones and NO TERRAIN. None, nothing. Not a thing.

Not only this, but I was playing Ryan Shepard's vastroyans which had been punching faces for the first 3 rounds.

To give an idea of what I was up against:
2 company commands in chimeras
4 meltas each

battle psykers in chimera

3 veteran squads in chimeras, 3 plasma each
3 hydras
2 manticores
2 bane wolves

Oh fuck me. Twice. I get to wake up and play against this in the round with zero big, hidey, "I'm a fkn coward" pieces of terrain to cower behind? Lucky for me he didn't include a Inquisitor and Mystics in his list, or I'd have been entirely 100% bent over.

My only hope is a good drop. First turn see's ryan hammering my long fangs. I get very lucky and one unit doesn't run off the board. His banewolfs turbo boost over, ready to spray flaming poop all over my marines, or whatever the hell those tanks actually shoot. The majority of his firing is at my long fang units, I get lucky and survive a lot of it.

My first turn drop is extremely lucky. My pods land exactly where I want them. All 3 grey hunter squads. I drop aggressively on top of him, not giving his firing line much room to wiggle away. My strategy is if I can survive the initial drop, I'll overwhelm him with power armor, krak grenades and foul language. I take pot-shots at a few transports with melta guns and blow most of what I shoot at. I stun one banewolf and prepare to bend over for the other.

Turn two, ryan shifts around a little.. Mostly just to start putting in the boots to my poor marines. Since when does Logan Grimnar, Lord of the Space wolves, High king of Fenris, victor of the first Armageddon war, grizzled old bad ass, think its wise to attack a mechanized guard army out in the complete open? His command should be up for review by the other wolf lords, he is obviously senile and losing his damn mind. Ryan sprays poo all over one long fang squad, reducing them to a single model.
His manticores nearly make one squad of grey hunters their new bitch with something like 20+ wounds inflicted. I get lucky and save most of them. His battle psykers end up doing a perils of the warp on themselves for the second time. Pot shots see my lone-wolf die. My turn two logan and the other terminator squad both arrive. That never happens for me.

So in Ryans defence, I got lucky this turn. It was pivotal.. Sooooo lucky. Lucky like I have never been. Now, when dice hose me (as they often do) it pisses me off. I hate it when a clear win get ruined by dice. He takes this turn right on the chin, smiling. If I were him, I'd be kicking children and throwing minis by this point. A true good sport, and had there been a vote for "best sport" Ryan would have got mine without a doubt.

So turn two, I blast some more tanks. My long fangs kill both banewolfs. Noteworthy shot is that one pack was only one long fang. My grey hunters swarm through the pods in a attempt to overwhelm his line. I try to do mix charges where possible in order to hit a squad as well as tanks to keep me locked in combat with both. But I throw a little too much into his infantry and wipe them where I hit them. My terminators manage to pop the battle psykers chimera.

Turn three onward I manage to pull out the win steadily grinding through his tanks and infantry a few at a time.

Win to the wolves when they shouldnt have got it. I'd gladly play Ryan again any time. He is a solid player and very cool person. The first time in a long time I have genuinely enjoyed a tournament game, win or lose and it was all due to his character.

So now I'm 3 wins, one tie and in the fighting for a spot in top 3.

ROUND FIVE:
5 objectives. Central objective is worth 2.

I go up against a nurgle based force (again) but with 2 lash princes this time (ugh).
So in game 4 the dice did piles of awesome and I stole a win, right? Well in this game, my dice decided it was time to fuck me again. In all the time I'd been using drop pods, this was probably the worst drop I'd ever seen. Every pod managed to scatter almost a full foot away from the other pods, leaving all my squads isolated and waiting to be picked off by the two lash prince tranny tag-team.

However, even with horrible dice I manage to give nearly as good as I get. My opponent's name was Doug and another very cool player. He came from california as well. The game ends on turn 7 with doug holding two objectives and with me holding one. I just couldnt quite get the rolls I needed to squeeze out a tie. Well played to him, but I think the game would have been very different had my initial drop gone well. I usually just castle up a bit at first and reinforce it with later reserves. With all my shit scattering as far away from itself as it could, I was hosed from the start.

So I finish with 3 wins, 1 tie, 1 loss. Doug and I were fighting for second.. It looked like he made off with a good mountain of stuff.

My friend Cody took third with my old Salamander army. So congrats to him.

All in all, a good tournament, I'm considering throwing my dice in the trash... I think the wonky scenarios were okay. Round 4 was a crock of shit though, and downed piolet really sucked.

I think to make round 3 work better would just be:
A: if a player gets it off the board edge, auto-win. game over
B: if a player ends the game holding the objective, its a win.

As it was, it didnt matter if you held the objective.. Or tabled the other guy. It was a tie.

Thanks to everyone for coming out from all over the country. Thanks to Romeo and Battlefoam for sponsoring the event, and thanks to Empire games and Kyle Kinghorn for hosting it, judging and never getting to have any fun punching faces themselves.

I look forward to the next one.

Empire 750pts tournament

2009-01-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

Playing in the Empire games 750 tournament this weekend.. my list is looking like:

Kantor
x10 tactical
x5 sternguard w/ 2 plasma cannons
x5 sternguard w/ 2 lascannons
thunderfire cannon

I dont normally use kantor, but feel he should be a bit of a pain at the low point level. the Sternguard add both scoring units to the army, and some punch. Functioning like mini-devastator squads that can still kick an ass or three in close combat. Thunderfires are just piles of broken at 1500pts for 100 each, I cant imagine how retarded they are at half that points.

I considered dropping the lascannons for missile launchers which would allow one squad to get a power weapon.. But I think I'll stick with the lascannons for now. Picture update soon...

Nevermore

2009-01-04T05:22:00.000-08:00

"In the darkness all men are equal, save those who embrace it."

So here we finally have the Ravenguard I've been promising. I themed the army around the 5th company (black) as I think the red or green rims stand out a bit much against the black armor. Plus with Captain Shrike being 3rd company, I wanted something a bit different.

Over the years I have found no matter how much work and effort I put into black, it all looks the same at 4' away. I can drybrush and wash it, or blend highlights till my nose bleeds.. And all the work is lost.

So with that being said, I went for a fast "table top" standard on these fellas. Drybrushing and some neat detailing was the order of the day. Since GW doesn't make a Ravenguard transfer, I had to hand paint the chapter badge. While not 100% exact, I feel its close enough to not be mistaken for who they are. I may do a tutorial if there is some demand.

Anyways, enough prattle. Onto the pictures:

First up is a simple black reach captain. I use him as a "counts as" Cato Sicarius. All I did was remove the bolter and some chest detail and add the plasma pistol. Backpack is from the pastic captain boxed set.

Next up is the Librarian Decimus. Yeah, I know.. Lousy joke.
Terminator armor/storm shield is a obvious choice. I will likely use use him with gate/vortex. Possibly subbing in vortex for null zone. Stock model with minor shield conversion work to make it fit.

Pair o' dreads. I did these fellas because 99% of the time when I use marines, I think Dreadnoughts tend to be a waste of points and effort. Which is a damn shame considering they are some of my favorite models ever. I always enjoy painting a couple and adding them to any marine army I'm working on. HOWEVER, since drop-pods beat so much ass, these fellas have found a home in my list. The multi-meltas and low points cost make for some handy turn 1 anti-tank. And usually tends to make people press their "oh shit" button.

Some wip scouts. I originally intended to use these with Captain Shrike to make for a nice 1-2 punch. Only conversion is the Sergeant, I added a power weapon for a simple weapon swap.

The assault marines were the first unit I painted for this army. I had the intention of infiltrating them with Shrike, but have moved onto Sicarius instead. They are a pretty cheap squad however, and may find their way into my lists at lower point games. White arms and helmets usually designates Captain, but I thought it looked really cool, so wanted more than 1 mini in my army with it. So the odd Vet Sgt. here and there will have it.

The mk6 corvus or "beakie" squad. In the old Ravenguard fluff, they supposedly have a boat load of mk6 armor available to them. To be honest, I really hate the helmet. I honestly avoid it whenever possible. But I felt it wasn't right to do the Ravens and not have at least a few guys with it.. So in my army this is the tactical squad I dont put in a pod. They baby sit my deployment zone and camp objectives. When Sicarius is in command, the squad has a lascannon, plasma gun and combi-plasma. The idea being if I need to give a squad tank-hunter.. Its going to be these lazy gits. The plasma cannon has since joined my Rhino Squad (not finished yet).

3 Tactical squads compliment the dread's for some hot drop pod action. Pretty basic, 2 with power weapons and one with a power fist. Drop, shoot bitches, dont die too fast is the usual objective. one is a standard tactical box, the other 2 squads come from the black reach set. Black reach sgt's have been converted to have power weapons

Sgt.Telion and his sniper's. I've had mixed sucess with this unit. Telion is godly, the snipers are meh. I went with brown camo-capes to somewhat match the desert basing. Telion's cape isn't finished yet. They dont often appear in my final list, but usually pop up in smaller point games where busting a cap in someone's sgt is oh-so-dick.

Pair o' Multi-meltas. These are usually swapped out for drop-pod tactical's missle launchers. I still need to paint one more. The melta gun and lascannon are also for swapping out in the above tacticals.

The handy dandy rhino. This is for the sicarius list.. My 5th tactical squad rides in it. It it armed with fist, flamer and plasma cannon. Ideal on the plasma cannnon being that its only 5 points. If I fire it, great. If not, the pos only cost me 5 points. This squad will typically recieve the Scout rule from sicarius if a turn 1 charge is possible or needed and I dont need tank hunter.

THINGS STILL TO DO:
x5 Vanguard veterans (almost done)
x10 more tactical marines (not built)
x2 Iron-clads (built but not painted)
x4 more drop pods (built and primed, one finished)
Finish shrike

Hope you all enjoyed. Sorry for the horrible pics, black is a moderate whore to photograph when you dont know wtf you are doing.

Recipes:
Black primer
paint black
heavy drybrush with 50/50 black and codex grey
light drybrush with codex grey

paint all metal bits chainmail.
Then wash all metal and black all at once with badab black
add details and voila, instant ghetto ravenguard

Add squad numbers

Empire Patrol

2008-12-20T19:26:00.000-08:00

Did the 500 point patrol tournament and Empire games this weekend.

I ended up taking:

x10 tactical marines w/ flamer, missile launcher and a power weapon
x10 tactical marines w/ flamer, missile launcher and a power weapon
x5 assault marines w/ power fist

Its been a while since I've played games this small. The scenarios were just randomly generated out of the rule book every round. I had a lot of fun, the games went quickly and all my opponents were cool folks.

I ended up winning all 3 games and took over-all. Thanks to Empire for hosting the tournament and everyone who showed up and participated. I look forward to the next 40k event held there..

Plus it was the first time my Ravenguard have been fielded at all.

Wolf Time

2008-12-18T04:14:00.000-08:00

I lied about Ravenguard being my next post as I just stumbled across these pics. Decent consolation prize I hope?

Ok, So I found ancient pictures of a Space Wolf army I did many, many moons ago. I think the year was 2002. I sold the army off after about a year of playing it, and it was one of the few I've ever sold that I truly regretted.

So here we go. This was my wolf-lord based on Logan Grimnar. Sadly, he never saw any action on the table-top.

Here are the two wolf-guard battle leaders that I used most of the time. One with frost blade, one with a power fist. Banners were the first time I ever attempted making a banner out of greenstuff, and my sculpt-jitsu was weak.

I went with a nod to Rogue trader era power fist painting. The hazard stripes were an idea of a friend which I promptly ripped off.

The army I commonly used featured a solid core of grey-hunters. Blood claws were all the rage at the time, so I wanted to shy away from them to avoid cries of cheese.

One squad had all their faces painted black wether or not they wore a helmet to act as a "squad marking" and would help myself and opponents identify members of different squads.

Another item of note was all the wolf pelts I painstakingly collected. This was before I could sculpt, or knew anything about casting. Before you could simply just order the bits. I haggled, bought, traded, stole, begged and borrowed for every wolf pelt over a period of about 2 years. Every model in the army wore one with the exception of my scouts and blood claws.

My favorite squad was probably the wolf scouts. They were nothing remarkable or special to look at.. But this squad kicked ten shades of shit out of most of the people I played against. Their rules were one of the reasons I began using this army in 3rd ed. I felt they were so brutal, I had to "dumb down" other aspects of my army just so I didnt piss off the people I played against.

A rune priest I dont think I ever got to use. Converted from Njall storm caller.

I usually used this guy as either a third wolf guard battle leader, a wolf guard leader, or a fella with mark of the wolfen.

The long fangs. I've always been a bit of a missile launcher whore with my devastator units. I ran out of wolf pelts on these guys and wanted to get them done for a tournament.

The predator every marine player either does or should own. The jury is out with it being good in 5th ed though.

The land raider. For when you just have to plonk something big and expensive on the table that says "HEY SHOOT ME ASSHOLE, I'M A BIG EFFIN MODEL THATS GENERALLY IMPOSING BUT TENDS TO NOT DO A WHOLE LOT. RAWR!!!!11"

Detail shot, and example of highlights.

And lastly, the poor unsung work-horse of any marine army I have ever owned or played.. The rhino(s).

The army was inspired by Bryan Shaw's. He did a shitload of free hand markings and unique insignia on his own wolves (which he also sold). That is also the friend I mentioned ripping off the hazard stripes from.

Next update: Ravenguard for real. Swear!

2008-12-18T03:42:00.000-08:00

Ok, So truth be told.. I am a royally lazy bastard with updating blogs and/or taking pictures. A new camera popped up in the house recently, so updates shouldnt be so few and far between.

My apologies for the crappy quality pics. Its 5am and I really dont care to play around with the camera too much. Just felt like seeing how it might work out. So, here goes nothing. I forgot how unforgiving a camera can be on a up-close mini.

So, here are some random minis I've worked on or had laying around for a while. The majority of these were painted with speed and "table top" quality in mind.

First up is a Deathwing terminator I did for a multi-wing army. It is a lot of fun to play, but a pain in the balls to paint. I do each terminator one at a time, have one totally finished and a couple more about half-done.

Next is a Blood Angel Sgt I did some time ago. I was playing around with nmm, and I completely hate painting red. So this was more of a personal challenge and just messing around than anything else.

I had a semi-large raptors army a while back. I played the hell out of that army in local tournaments, the emperors champion and numerous pick-up games. I sold the army about 2 years back and have no pictures of it. But somehow this guy survived the sale. I think I intended to fold him into a smaller squad.

Another blood angel. I got excited at the prospect of doing an "air force" with troops being assault marines. They were always one of my favorite units to field with any marine army I've ever had. Unfortunately, my dislike of painting red meant I never got past this fella.

I enjoy painting Ultramarines quite a bit. I feel they lend themselves quite well to being highlighted. What I don't like about them is it seems every other swinging dick on the planet with a marine army does the Ultra's. I paint a few here, a few there. Maybe someday it'll be a complete army.. But I guess I feel no matter how nice I attempt to make them, they'll be "just another smurf army".

On my quest for something unique but known by other players, I got it in my head Blood Ravens would be cool thanks mostly to Dawn of War. The addition of foundation paints made it so painting red was much more tolerable, I just didnt feel very passionate about them. About a dozen models in, I lost interest.

A note on bases and chapter badges (or lack of). I tend to do all of these at the same time once all the painting on a army is complete. On the upside, it makes all the bases and badges consistant. On the downside, my stuff alway looks half assed and unfinished untill then.

I'm debating if I want to keep this stuff, sell all my old "project" off, or just strip them and fold them into a new project.

Next update: My nearly finished(!) Ravenguard army.

Does this look infected?

2008-06-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well I played in the Imperial Outpost goodbye to 4th edition tournament.

Here is my list:

x2 Demon prince, wings, lash

x2 units of 10 plague marines, champ w/fist, rhino, icon

x1 units of 8 plague marines, champ w/fist, rhino, icon

x6 units of 5 lesser demons

x2 dreadnoughts w/ twin lascannon

x1 predator w/ lascannons.

The list may seem unconventional in that I took no special weapons to keep the marines cheap, and several units of lesser demons. But it ended up working quite well. I wouldnt normally piss on dreadnoughts if they were on fire and firmly believe they are a complete waste of points, but that was 25opts worth of models I had laying around. I basically fielded them just to eat up points and see if they did anything cute.

The plague marines are most definately badass. They far exceeded my expectations. In 5th ed i would probably load them up with plasma guns for more punch, but I'm not convinced they really need it. The lesser demons were my MVP's of the tourney. They suprised every opponent, tied up units, got in the way, grabbed objectives and just generally were a pain in the ass.

I went 3-0. Scoring 17, 15 and 18 battle points for my games. Not bad for their first tournament. The list could use some fine tuning and I dont plan to keep all the vehicles/princes in fifth edition. I grabbed second place, and lost overall by a very small margin I hear. Better luck next time eh?

2008-06-25T03:48:00.000-07:00

So I have finally caved and created a blog relating to my misadventures in nerd-land. I dont expect many people to read this, or glean tons of useful information. Maybe I can inspire some, give a laugh or help people out here and there.

I've found over the past 2 years or so, I find myself regularly checking the painting sections of various forums and following some people's blogs rather closely. I'm not entirely sure if its to find inspiration, to see if I can find some trick I hadn't thought of or for ideas to flat out rip-off because I'm lazy and cant be bothered to be creative (kidding).

I have been somewhat burned out on the hobby for a couple of years, but have still followed releases closely and kept up with new rules, codexes, white dwarf etc. Maybe the inspiration I was trying to find during the last 2 years or late night internet browsing wasn't required. Perhaps I just needed to take a shot and keeping track of what I do for others to check out..

So hopefully I can commit to this, stay motivated and update often.. And hopefully you, the reader find something you like.